I'm an iDork now

iTried. iFailed. I'm now an owner of a shiny new iPhone. When the iPhone came out, I avoided the hype. How could so many people be excited over a phone? It's just a phone, right? After all, it just makes calls and we've been doing that for a hundred years now. Which just so happens about the same age of my old cell phone, so I figured it was time for an upgrade.

My requirements were short: I wanted a phone that makes calls (ideally from my house...my old phone only accomplished that about half the time), a GPS, the ability to read/send e-mail, and probably the strangest request...the ability to show pictures. Lots of phones I looked at were very capable of meeting my first three requests, but the choice became obvious when looking at the iPhone's large screen. I was very skeptical of the touch screen, but it's amazing! I was sold after 5 minutes of playing with the phone, I knew it was the one for me.

Either my expectations were low, or I'm impressed easily, but I'm in awe of this phone. Well, maybe I should say the "Apps" for this phone. The GPS feature is nice, but I already have a great GPS. I was hoping for the GPS feature to help out in situations where I didn't have my hand held GPS with me (I do get lost from time to time...don't tell!). This is almost ridiculous, what if I got lost, but also needed "pizza"? Well, here's a sample screen shot of just such an occasion.



Not only does it show all the pizza places around me, I can actually pick the one I want and get turn by turn directions or better yet their number (which only needs one click) to call them and ask for deliver! Now my fancy hand held GPS can't even come close to pulling that off.

My first real experience with an new "App" that I added to my phone was one called Shazam. I picked it because it was rated high and best of all it was free. Now I didn't try it the first night, but I made Becca try while we were traveling up north for Thanksgiving. The concept seemed too good to be true, your favorite new song comes on the radio, the DJ never says the title and goes immediately to a commercial after the song ends, the artist and title remain a mystery. This "App" promised by holding the phone up to the speaker for about ten seconds, it could tell the name and artist of the song. Bullsh*t! There's just no way, right? Wrong again. For the first test, I was playing something that I'd hardly consider popular and Shazam got it. Okay, that was a more modern song, lets try something early 80's, it got it. I've already used it once, snagging a new song that I had know clue who it was:



With this "App", there's no reason to even employ DJ's!

It's official, I'm an iDork. I can't help it though, the phone is so damn cool! I was only after a phone that could show off pictures, instead I got a phone that completely amazes me. Sure it's missing a few things, there's definitely things that could be better about it, but overall I think I have the phone that I've been missing for years. iHappy.

I'm a Grandparent...Maybe

I know, it's a shock, Mani is a mommy! This came as a very unexpected surprise, but I believe this spring I will become a grandparent to many very tiny praying mantises. Never one to call a lady fat, especially one that is know for killing mates, I didn't want to say anything to her about her belly, but it was very large. She had been eating every moving creature put in her cage, so I figured she just needed to control her eating habits like I do. Instead, I came home to find her laying her eggs in a nest above her favorite hunting grounds.

This definitely is my good deed for the year (with a whole month to spare)! Not only did I save Mani from a cold and certain death, but by doing so, I even saved countless other unborn Mani's and Manny's! I wonder when the mayor is going to give me a call to receive the key to the city...

Oh, and since they won't be born until the spring, I'm not obligated as a grandparent to buy them Christmas gifts this year!!

The Biggest Loser (The Quest to Find Abs)

I'm officially two weeks into my quest to find my abs again, I miss them. Having not seen them in about 10 years, I hope they are still there. I'm still unsure how they disappeared because I still am a horrible cook! I'll have to assume it's been 10 years of my strenuous desk job and my couch movie watching habits.

Now I did attempt to do this last year about this time, and the fact I'm writing about doing it again, proves I failed. This time around though, there is much more motivation. In addition to the motivation, it's more of a complete system, diet and exercise. By the way, don't label shop in the grocery store on Sundays, it's busy! So, for the first time ever, groceries were bought paying strict attention to the labels in an attempt to keep calories down.

The exercise system has also changed. Last year was treadmill every other day for three days a week. This time, it's treadmill twice a day at least three days a week, weight training on the other days, plus aerobic videos to keep the daily exercise at about an hour a day.

Monday marked the second full week of this new torture. I'm down about five pounds, still have a long way to go to see those abs again, but I'm already up to three miles a day on the treadmill (it was a struggle to even get to one the first day). That is exciting by itself. So, next time you see me, hopefully there will be less of me.

My goal is to be in great shape for my Cozumel trip, which is just about 5 months away.

Trout Like Me

What a weekend! With the season winding down, the diving is going to get much more difficult once the lakes freeze over (not to mention the fact that I really don't want to ice dive!), so it's best to take opportunities when you can. It just so happened that a couple of the local divers were planning another trip to the Gilboa Quarry, the spot of our advanced dive class. Both Becca and I were disappointed that with the class, we really didn't have a chance to leave with any pictures or video showing what a cool place Gilboa is. This visit, definitely became a set of dives I'm sure we'll both always remember and look back on and laugh.

Our plan was two dives, we ended up doing three dives. The Gilboa Quarry is stocked with many different types of fish and one of our goals this time was to feed them. We bought two bags of fish food with the thought that we would use one on the our first dive and one on the second, so we'd both get a turn. I put the food in my pocket and off we went. On our first dive, we wanted to explore an area that we only visited on our night dive, a group of tubes. Quite frankly at night, it was eerie as hell, and we didn't stick around very long. This time in the day light, it was much more relaxing. As we were swimming out, the fish seemed much more friendly then I remembered. After we played around in the tubes, we went back to a sunken school bus that is the traditional feeding ground for the fish. I open my pocket to get the food out and I couldn't find it. It really didn't strike me as odd because with dive gloves on, it's not the easiest thing in the world to feel around in pockets. Becca helped, nothing! At first I remember being irritated that clearly Becca wasn't doing a good job looking in my pocket...then the light bulb went off in my head as to why the fish were so friendly! After our dive, neither of us really understood how or why the fish food went missing. It was honestly like the fish picked my pocket. We admitted our mistake to our diving friends and had a laugh about it. Becca and Mark, outsmarted by some fish!

Dive two, this time no fooling around. Becca carried the food in her pocket and we were going to feed the fish first, then play around exploring. We got in position, Becca got the video camera ready, I got the food out of her pocket and then learned it's impossible to open a ziplock bag with gloves on! Well, that's why they invented dive knifes, so I pull mine out and open the bag. Now, I've watched the Discover Channel before. I know what a feeding frenzy is, but nothing prepared me for how crazy the next forty-five seconds would get. Fish were coming in from every angle, so fast and unpredictable, I was worried that they would fillet themselves on my dive knife. The whole time I'm trying to watch what is happening, but I'm also trying to keep the fish safe, that's when one decided to kiss me. I can't even describe the craziness of this, so here's video:




It really didn't hurt, but it definitely was a shock! I figured with all the action, Becca wouldn't have any idea what happened, though I know I muttered "Son of a bitch" through my regulator! After our dive, I told her about what had happened and we just laughed. It wasn't until a few minutes later she noticed that I was bleeding, "What did you do to your check?". When she pointed it out to me, that's when it hit home, I had a fish hickey! That's when this became more then just a laugh, this is something I'm going to have to live down for a very long time!

Oh, and for the record, that's why we needed a third dive. There was no way we could leave without Becca taking her turn feeding the fish. Back in the water we went, but for some reason I noticed that she held her bag of food very far away from her body and the fish somehow managed to take the whole bag of food from her in under ten seconds!

I may be marked with a fish hickey, but definitely turned into a fun weekend. Here's a couple videos:


Becca first gets sucked into the engine of the plane, then we swim through it.



Me chasing fish around.